Sunday, August 15, 2004

Today's New York Times has an article, in which criticisms are levels
against the government of the United States of America. The
problem, they report, is that six universities in the country have
nuclear research reactors that use highly enriched uranium. There
used to be more, but the Department of Energy began a process about
twenty years ago to convert them all to low enriched (<20%)
uranium. The article states that the remaining reactors could be
converted at a cost of five to ten million dollars each.

[...] But since 1978, out of concern that the uranium might be turned
into bomb fuel, the Department of Energy has spent millions of dollars
to develop lower-grade fuel and convert scores of reactors to run on
it. As of July 30, according to the Government Accountability Office
(formerly the General Accounting Office), 39 of 105 research reactors
worldwide had converted or were in the process. But the six campus
reactors in this country are not among them.

"It's outrageous that they're still doing this," said Victor
Gilinsky, who was an early advocate for switching to low-enriched fuel
as a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1975 to 1984.
There may not be quite enough on hand at Wisconsin to make a bomb, he
said in a telephone interview, but "who says that somebody has to get
enough in one shot?"

Campus reactors have far less security than places where the
government keeps bomb-grade uranium, and they may have foreign students
of unknown political sympathies, Mr. Gilinsky said. And he pointed out
that the United States is seeking to persuade countries all over the
world to stop civilian use of bomb-grade uranium.

"It's a bad example," he said. "How can we go around the world
asking people to shift over if we're not shifting over ourselves?"

Asked why the research reactors had not been converted, Anson Franklin,
a spokesman for the department's National Nuclear Security
Administration, which is in charge of nonproliferation, was blunt.
"There hasn't been enough funding," he said. He noted that in May,
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham promised to seek conversion of all the
reactors by 2014. But he said he could not give a schedule for the
campus reactors.

Mr. Franklin also acknowledged that his department does not know just
what the cost would be. The Energy Department told the accountability
office that it had converted 11 research reactors at universities for a
total of $10 million, but that the remaining ones would cost $5 million
to $10 million each. That drew a sharp rejoinder from the State
Department, which wants the reactors converted. [...]

The concern is that the highly-enriched uranium might be stolen.
Although the amount of uranium at any one reactor would not be enough
to make a fission bomb, it would be a good start. Stealing the
uranium would be difficult. The article points out some of the
difficulties, although the author did not detail the most feasible
theft scenarios. The Corpus Callosum will not comment
further. Unlike the NYT, I do not like to publish information
that could serve as a roadmap for terrorists.

The point here is this: it would cost $30 to $60 million to eliminate
this potential threat. The State Department wants it to
happen. The Department of energy wants it to happen. But is
has not happened. Why not?

What about the situation here in Ann Arbor, Michigan? The research reactor on campus was converted to low enriched uranium in 1984, then shut down in 2003.
This closing resulted from a decision made by the Regents in 2000,
shortly after the accomplishments made possible by the reactor were
lauded in their 50th anniversary celebration. The shutdown was controversial, as mentioned in this article for the Michigan Daily. Apparently, budget problems played a role:

[...] Because the reactor was principally used by
parties outside the University, its $1.2 million annual expenditure
made it difficult for the University to justify keeping it running,
Francis said.

At the time of the decision, the reactor was in need of substantial
repair — such as the replacement of building and electrical systems — a
third of which was urgent or high priority. Similarly, increased
security since the Sept. 11 attacks has raised the costs of operating
the reactor, Francis said. [...]

"The reactor was in need of substantial repair ... a third of which was
urgent or high priority"? How in the world did it get to that
point? The NYT article does not mention any of this. It
does make me curious to know what kind of repairs the remaining
research reactors need, and how much of that is urgent.

The link below goes to a dummy account that automatically forwards email to the Federal Trade Commission's spam reporting service. Don't use it unless
you are a robot. Instead, act like a human and figure out the real address from this: joseph/dot/j7uy5/at-sign/gmail/dot/com

The Corpus Callosum is an occasional journal of armchair musings, by an Ann Arbor reality-based, slightly-left-of-center regular guy who reserves the right to be highly irregular at times.
Topics: social commentary, neuroscience, politics, science news.
Mission: to develop connections between hard science and social science, using linear thinking and intuition; and to explore the relative merits of spontaneity vs. strategy.